Trio of simple utilities (lotsa pics!)

Thanks for the feedback and nice words, guys; I really appreciate it!

Salem and Nathan, I tried playing around with the photos more this morning and I'm still having a hard time capturing the hamon. Here are the results of my attempts...if you can maybe tell what I'm doing wrong from looking at the pics, I'd really appreciate any further advice you can offer.

These two were with more dim, indirect light and dark reflectors and/or backgrounds. I seem to either get washed-out blurry glare or nothing with this approach:

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I seemed to have to physically hold the knife at an extreme angle and use somewhat brighter light to get the hamon to show itself:

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And finally, these were with pretty bright(ish) light coming from a more extreme side angle, and it seems to show up the best to me but also washes out everything else:

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Also, when I was just working on them, the hamons were most evident when I had them sitting indoors on a table directly under an incandescent light fixture. I found them much harder to see in general in natural light.
 
Yeah, they are elusive :D. I really have to re-position the knife, move the tripod, change the light, go at weird angles, etc to get what I'm looking for, and I don't come anywhere close to some of the guys capturing hamons out there. The window I use for photographing is actually in the shade, so it is really indirect. Basically, I just utilize the brightness of the outdoors, but I don't want direct sunlight coming through the window. If you've got a "beam" of light coming in as opposed to a faint brightness, you may have too much light. You also may need to increase your exposure time a bit, and you'll need a tripod to keep things crisp in addition to using the self-timer on the camera. Even the act of pushing the button will create a shake with longer exposures.

I'd say just really play with angles and with your camera setting. You'll get there, especially if you can find a great light source. And instead of holding the knife, place it on a surface, using a prop as necessary to adjust the angle, and then create the photo angle by moving the camera instead.

Keep at it, and they'll start showing up.

--nathan
 
Very nice work Paul! :)

Paul, I know how you are about your approach to knives. So my two cents to the peanut gallery: The key with any knife making technique, is that most of them ARE relatively simple in theory. Pulling them off WELL usually isn't. ;) :)
 
Paul, have you tried using Gimp/Photo$hop for a little post photographic manipulation? It won't make the hamon magically appear but it is sometimes just enough to make it show a little better.
 
Nathan, for some reason the more and brighter the light, the better it's showing up for me. Strange. OK, I'll keep playing around with it; thanks for the tips!

Thanks for the nice compliment, Nick; I really appreciate it! I am glad to hear that you and Mike concur with the idea that many of these seemingly simple techniques aren't always so simple to execute...

Patrice, I tinker with the software manipulations a bit in iPhoto (Mac), but I am not an expert in photo editing by any means. Gimp sounds familiar...is that what you used in your editing thread from a while back? If so, I think I looked it up then and found it wasn't compatible with my computer.
 
Maybe it's not so much the brightness of the light as it is the quality. Most photo boxes use a white, opaque barrier to diffuse the light and often reflectors to further spread it around. That's where I was talking about "beams" of light. If you've got beams coming in, you have more of a spotlight effect. What you want is for the incoming light to be spread out over the entire photo area. Take the following pictures for example:

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See how the light floods the entire area? Anyway, that's the kind of lighting I shoot for if I can get it. I built a photo box a while back, but I never got it completely finished to use. Of course, keep in mind that I have absolutely no idea what I am talking about when it comes to professional photos. I'm just trying to share what works for me :D.

--nathan
 
Yep, Gimp is for poor folks like me. Probably hard to make it work on Mac$. ;)
Kidding aside, I heard that Mac is great for photo manipulation.
 
That looks great, Nathan. I just can't seem to come up with that look around here. I was wondering if it has something to do with where I live with the sun being so intense all the time. Prior to trying for these shots, I always seem to be fighting either too much light or not enough when taking standard photos. I know I should built a lightbox, but there's just always something else demanding the attention of my time and/or wallet that I haven't made it happen yet.

Gimp would be great for me too, Patrice! I just wish it was compatible with my machine. I'm not sure how capable iPhoto actually is, or if you need to buy some other software to get real editing power.
 
Paul, I was going to give you some more photo advice for hamons, but Nathan's approach is pretty much exactly what I do. I do use a lightbox for most of my pix, but when I want to get a more dramatic hamon shot it's diffuse, indirect natural light.

The thing about hamons, and everything to do with them it seems, is unpredictability. The same technique, be it quench, clay, polish, photos, will seem to yield a slightly different effect on different days. That's actually refreshing if you ask me. Once you start changing steels and quench mediums, polishing techniques etc, photos for your hamon may well act a lot different then photos for ours.

About you plunges, they look good, no problem there, but they also looked good when you hand cut them. I was just curious.
 
Thanks Salem; I'll just need to play around with it a lot more I guess. I like the unpredictability of most of it too, but it sure would be nice if the photography part would cooperate a little more ;)
 
Really sweeeeeeeeeeet looking trio of knives. I will guarntee you those boys will be proud to own them! You done em proud!
 
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